R: Made a rubbish getaway but the run to Ste Devote was short enough for me to stay in 1st. For most of that stint I was lapping at the same pace as Alonso in second, about 1 second behind. On the last two laps of the stint I pulled a gap of 3 seconds, and pitted at the end of lap 7. He went a lap longer, and lost a lot of time in so doing. After the first round of pitstops I was 10 seconds ahead and increasing the gap. Most of the race was spent seething at backmarkers who made no attempt to move aside (although Timo gave me a nice DRS boost down the main straight at one point). The recommended strategy was ss-s7-s17-s28, but I couldn’t do that because my third set of softs was worn down after Q1 and Q2, so I had to do the final stint on super softs, which meant running longer on the softs. I managed to eke out 3 extra laps on the first set of softs with very little loss in grip (although they looked absolutely destroyed) and pitted on lap 20. Ditto for the third stint – the team said I should pit on lap 28 but I ignored them and came in on lap 31. Curiously, the game changed my recommended strategy at the end of the third stint, and on lap 35 my RE was yelling at me to pit, after 4 laps on the super softs. I ignored him, of course. On lap 33 I turned fuel mix to 3 and pumped in a FL of 1:13.9, which stood until the end. The rest of the race was rather conservative, but I know those tyres had a few more laps in them. I finished 1st, 43 seconds ahead of Alonso.
I almost scored a Grand Chelem, but I didn’t lead every lap as I pitted first on lap 7, and staying long on the first stint proved to be a bad decision for the guys behind. Add that to being fastest in every single session, usually by a large margin.

Race 15: JapanQualifying: 24th – Race: 18th
In what was without doubt the hardest qualifying session of the year, I finished last, 7 tenths slower than the car in front of me. However, it was di Resta who started last, due to a penalty earned in qualifying. For once I decided to try something different and start on the hard compound, and despite this disadvantage I overtook several cars on the first lap to reach 17th place, which became 16th when Ricciardo retired, just to become 17th again when Vergne overtook me and to become 16th once more when the Frenchman pitted. I stopped on lap 8 and to my own surprise I was 18th and ahead of both Caterhams, Marussias and de la Rosa. My team mate, in fact, overtook Kovalainen and chased me albeit ten seconds behind me, and was the last car not to be lapped. I finished 18th, but the race winner was for the first time Sergio Perez, who decided to make my life harder after I selected him as my rival; Kobayashi finished second to give Sauber a one-two.

After qualifying 20th, a solid 17th looked on after early collisions for front running cars. A race long battle with Timo Glock led to me spinning and losing my front wing. With only 2 laps to go I persevered, got passed for 18th. Not so bad 19th being the target. However on the last lap I was awarded a time penalty for ignoring blue flags. So came 21st. A disappointing start.

I’m playing on the hardest difficulty, with all sim options on, no flashbacks and only assists I use are traction and abs (playing with a controller and the game doesn’t use analogue for the ps3 buttons, so accelerator and brake are just switches, lots of tapping required to control traction even with traction control on.). The reason for pole in Malaysia is the ai seems badly flawed on this circuit, especially in quali, and even in the marussia I was 1.5 secs faster than p2 lol. I only drive for back marker teams in this game, as when I drove for ferrari, even on hardest difficulty, I was able to lap the entire field in every race, pole time at Malaysia was I think about 4 seconds faster than p2 in a ferrari, makes for boring and pointless racing lol

Guessing you weren’t on the highest difficulty @pielighter, I just set a quali time of 1:12.898, which was only good for 13th, .9 off pole, ai seems good on this track to me. Not worried though, I have the marussia set up worked out perfect for race pace :)

Started a career at Virgin replacing Jerome.I am useless at this game…
Australia:After Qualifying 22nd behind Glock I made a rubbish start and dropped to last.Once I was last I stayed there.This is going to be a long season…

season 1 – Virgin Marussia:Malaysia
Quali:Finally,a circuit I like!Still struggling to get used to the game.Qualified in 21st.
Race:Moved up to 17th after 2 laps but after that I really lost it.A sudden spin put me down to 23rd and then I got a puncture and pitted.So I think that this is going to be a repeat of Melbourne when a load of people suddenly retire…Vettel,Webber,Alonso,Button and Alguersuari retire and I am now in 19th!Then several people pit and I move up to 11th.Buemi passed me then Di Resta followed.I finished 13th!13th!c’mon guys it’s a big deal…